Remember when 64GB device storage sounded like science fiction? In 2025, Apple finally buried it. Good riddance, because in an age of 4K video, multi-GB games, and message threads crammed with media, 64GB was becoming a squeeze. This move acknowledges that iPhones have long ceased to be phones with perks – they’re full-on pocket computers.
But while Apple steadily nudged internal storage forward (albeit sometimes glacially), one thing hasn’t changed in nearly 15 years: the free iCloud tier. It’s been stuck at 5GB since its debut in 2011.
You might wonder why there’s a free tier at all. It’s likely because even Apple couldn’t justify charging an extra monthly fee to make basic iPhone capabilities work. With no iCloud storage, sync freezes. Calendar. Notes. Contacts. They all stop updating. And 5GB is incredibly easy to fill without even trying.
So what can you do? You could stop using iCloud entirely, but that’s not a smart move. Because if you lose your iPhone, you lose your data – unless you regularly back up devices to a PC or Mac. Which I’m willing to bet almost no one reading this does. The real answer? Give Apple money!
Not that Apple phrases it that way. Instead, it gently nudges you towards iCloud+ with the line, “When you upgrade to iCloud+, you get even more storage.” Even more is doing heavy lifting there, implying that 5GB is acceptable to begin with. It’s not.
Cash cloud
I need <600GB. I have to buy 2TB. Sigh.
Payments start small to get you hooked: $1 per month for 50GB. $3 gets you 200GB. Then there’s a big jump to $10 for 2TB. (A personal irritation, since I need about 600GB myself but pay for 2TB because there’s no 1TB tier.) Beyond that, you’re in deep pockets territory: $30 for 6TB and a whopping $60 for 12TB.
To sweeten the pill, Apple throws in a handful of extras that I suspect barely anyone uses, apart from Hide My Email. What it never seems to do is up the storage within a tier or drop the pricing. Which, given that storage is getting cheaper over time, isn’t ideal.
Apple could fix this. But will it? Not a chance. There’s a reason iCloud pricing didn’t make it into my WWDC wish list, and that’s because it’s beyond the realm of possibility. Even more than a desktop mode for iPhone.
Why? Money. Look at the Apple Q2 2025 revenue graphs over at Six Colors. Services revenue is booming: it’s now the second-largest chunk of Apple income. And it’s the dream too: sticky, recurring, reliable, and growing. The more each user pays monthly, the less Apple has to rely on selling iPhones.
However, this comes at a cost. Apple risks becoming a services company that happens to make hardware, rather than the other way around. Instead of delighting people with amazing devices supported by thoughtful software, Apple may increasingly squeeze you for every drop of recurring revenue it can.
Despite this, I don’t mind paying something for storage. You can’t expect hundreds of gigabytes for free. But when you’ve dropped a grand on a new phone, 5GB feels like an insult. That needs to change, as do the other tiers. But of all the things we might see from Apple over the coming months, I suspect iCloud storage generosity won’t be one of them. After all, some traditions are just too profitable to let go.